“Oh my ing god,” Min breathes, fanning her face with her hand. “I don’t- I can’t even comprehend what just happened. I completely underestimated you.”

    “Holy ing , Mihi!” JB gleefully hollers, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “That was the best moment of my life!”

    We are standing by the water fountains after 1st period. People openly goggle at me as they walk by. The same thing happened during my Writing Seminar during 1st period: every single person in the room was ogling me, including my teacher. Oddly enough, though, no one has actually approached me or talked to me about the cafeteria incident.

    According to Suzy, not only have I humiliated Sehun in front of the entire student body, I’ve literally become the most discussed girl at Andong in the matter of an hour.

    Amazing.

“This is what I meant when I said she’d help us take Sehun down,” Mark says, ruffling my hair.

    “I take complete credit for this,” Jia pipes up. “I think my army-style pep talk last night helped her grow balls of steel.”

    “Ew, Jia!” I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t need balls to be kickass.”

    “Oh, !” Jackson cackles.

    “Wait, does that mean I don’t have to join a club?” I ask hopefully.

    “Ha!” Fei lets out a short bark of laughter. “Of course you have to! These are your 15 minutes of fame, Mihi. It’s up to you if you want to permanently lengthen them or eventually lose them.”

    I scowl. “Fine.”  

    As they continue freaking out about how much I’ve changed in the span of the night, how great I am now, I refrain from telling them that I really haven’t changed.

    I just voiced what I was thinking for once.

    Previously, I never did. Words can get you in trouble, so it’s best to speak as few of them as possible.

    But here I am now, recklessly speaking my mind and performing acts I’ve only dreamed of doing.

Needless to say, I’m already in trouble.

Kyungsoo, Jongin, Sulli, Victoria, and Sehun- the devil himself- are in my History of Asia class next period. Butterflies flit around in my stomach as Mark and Suzy walk with me to class. I don’t know what Sehun and his lackeys are going to do. And I don’t know how everyone else is going to react when faced with me and Sehun in the same room. Will they pick sides? Throw eggs at me like they did in that “Boys Over Flowers” show Jia was telling me about?

At least Mark and Suzy are in this class, too.

“You’re so adorable, cream pie,” Mark murmurs to Suzy, pecking her on the lips.

“Aww! Not as adorable as you, honey bunches,” Suzy responds in a gushy voice, nuzzling her nose with his. “You make school bearable.”  

“Because I’m your teddy bear!”

Oh my god. I take that back. I think I’m about to puke.

“Uh, guys?” I say, clearing my throat. “Can we... go inside?”

Mark blinks. “What? Oh, yeah! Let’s go! And remember, Mihi: stay calm. Those ers will try to intimidate you, but we’ll be backing you up.”

“Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, I open the door.

All chatter ceases as Mark, Suzy, and I enter the classroom. Sehun’s laser-like glare bores into me, and I coolly hold his gaze for a moment, a contemptful look on my face, before strolling away to take my seat.

I purposely avert my eyes from Sehun and his gang, but I can feel his laser-like glare boring into me. After tossing my things down, I take a seat and chat with Mark and Suzy. They keep throwing wary glances at Sehun, but I tell them to stop.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” I mutter. “That’s what they want.”

There’s no need for them to worry, anyway. Aside from vicious stares, Sehun has not said or done anything else to me. Somehow, this seems to solidify my peers’ respectful opinions of me- which is quite ironic, seeing as how just yesterday, they despised me because Sehun did.

The paranoia in my gut subsides.

Min snaps her fingers. “Okay. Read off the list to us.”

I swallow. “Uh... okay. So first, there’s the Imami club-,”

“Wha- Imami? What’s Imami?!” Fei snorts.

“It’s a type of African dance!” I exclaim petulantly. “It’s really cool, actually-,”

“Next!”

“How aboout the Environmental Action Committee-,”

“Next!”

“Varsity Writing Club?”

“Next!”

“Astronomy Club?”

“Ne- wait, hang on a second.” Fei furrows her eyebrows. “Jia, galaxy-printed leggings are in right now, correct?”

Jia looks up from her phone. “Yeah, of course. Galaxy everything’s in right now.”

Fei turns back to me. “Okay. Astronomy club it is.”

I narrow my eyes. Seriously? Astronomy doesn’t have anything to do with fashion. It’s just as intellectual as the other clubs I mentioned- but, I realize, Fei doesn’t know that. My lips curve upwards into a sly smile.

“Sounds good, Fei,” I say. “Astronomy Club is perfect.”

“When’s the first meeting?” Suzy asks.

“Next Thursday. I’ll definitely be there.”

This is easier than I thought it would be.

A week passes. The astonished stares directed at me haven’t fully abated, but people seem to have moved on to the next piece of juicy gossip.

Sehun and his conceited friends still haven’t done anything. At least I showed him that they couldn’t just humiliate me and expect to get away with it. The message seemed to have hit home with them.

A sense of satisfaction grips me. Looks like they understand that they can’t mess with me.

It has been an exhausting day, but finally, night falls, and I am cuddled up in my comforter, staring out the window at the inky black night sky. Tuesdays are always a drag- I hate them more than Mondays. And today was especially tiring.

The incessant talking and laughing and socializing necessary to uphold my newfound popularity is draining. And my skirt kept hiking up and I had to reapply my lip gloss every 10 minutes.

A strange creaak! resounds from somewhere in the distance.

Must be the wind, I think tiredly, burying my face in my pillow.  

I seem to have established some respect amongst the students of Andong. These rich kids- who previously looked down on me- now look up to me. It’s truly hilarious-

The sound of footsteps echoes through the room. Along with soft murmurs and quiet chuckles.

What the .

    “She’s here,” a raspy voice mutters.

    “No, you idiot, that’s her suitcase,” a low voice grumbles. “There are 4 zippers. Why are you so stupid?”

    “Well, excuse me-,”

    “Shut up,” a horribly familiar voice hisses, and my stomach plummets. I feel a tall figure loom above my bed. My eyes squeeze shut tightly as I feign sleep. “I found her.”

    Holy ing . Oh Sehun is in my dorm room. How the hell did Oh Sehun get in my dorm room? There are supposed to be security guards protecting the dorms! What the hell, Andong?

    Figures join Sehun next to my bed. I feel several pairs of eyes boring into my face. Nervous butterflies flit around in my stomach- not the cute ones that you get when you see your crush walking down the hallway, but the kind that make you feel like your insides are a mess and you’re going to puke up your intestines. What the are they doing?!

    “I kinda get what all the hype’s about, Sehun,” someone drawls. “She’s actually hot.”

Normally, a statement like this would make me smirk in triumph. But since it’s coming from one of Sehun’s friends, I have to resist the urge to gag. Disgusting.

Apparently Sehun feels the same way, because he emits a short bark of laughter and says, “If you find disgusting scholarship scum attractive, then sure.”

“Oh, please, Sehun,” someone else chuckles. “You’re just pissed because she embarrassed you in front of the whole school.”

“Shut the up. It’s time to put our plan into action.” Suddenly, I feel a pair of firm arms hoist me up out of bed. My plans of acting like I am asleep fly out the window.

    “What the are you doing?” I holler, writhing around. My eyes fly open to the sight of Sehun himself, hatefully sneering down at me. I realize with shock that he’s the one holding me.

    “Aww, Mihi’s woken up!” he cooes, and his cronies guffaw. “Hello. Mind going on a little midnight excursion with us?”

    “Let me go,” I say firmly, trying to hide my fear.

    “That’s no fun,” a voice scoffs. Park Chanyeol emerges from the shadows, sneering down at me. My stomach twists in loathing. Sehun’s the worst, but Chanyeol runs a close second, due to his love for beating the out of anyone who displeases him. I once saw him shove a freshman to the floor because the poor kid tripped on his feet. Disgusting.

    “How did you even get in here?” I growl.

    “Easy.” Jongin gives me a crooked half-smile. “I, er, convinced Lee Sooyoung to give me the passcode to your dorm complex.”

    I snort. Convinced? More like “stuck his tongue in and managed to decipher the password out of the various moans coming out of .”

    “Let this be a lesson to you, Mihi,” Sehun says in a frosty voice, his eyes staring straight into mine. “If you try to pull something like you did on Tuesday, you won’t get away with it. You think just because you slap some makeup on your face and dye your hair, you’re suddenly as good as us? Get over yourself.”

    “As good as you?” I scoff. “That’s implying that you’re any good at all.”

    Sehun grits his teeth. “You still don’t understand. That’s okay. We can do this as often as we want. Guys, I think Mihi’s ready to take a little field trip to the lake. What do you think, Baekhyun?”

    “I think that’s a great idea, Sehun.”

    “If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream,” I tell them in a calm, measured voice.

“No, you won’t,” Sehun says, and Joonmyeon slaps a hand over my mouth.

I am fuming with anger, indignity, and helplessness as they cart me across campus. How naive of me to think that Sehun would simply accept my humiliation of him without saying a word.

So this is how it’s going to be.

When we reach the lake, Sehun precariously hovers my body above the water.

“I feel generous, so I’ll give you one last chance to apologize,” he tells me. “Joonmyeon, remove your hand.”

As soon as he does so, I scream as loudly as I can- but Joonmyeon hurriedly slaps his palm above my mouth again.

“Okay, then.” Sehun sighs. “You forced me to.”

And he drops me in the lake.